The First Rose of Summer
by TNOandXadric
Summary: The year is 1947, and the royal decks need shuffling. Alice Liddell was the first Alice to visit Wonderland, but she won't be the last.
1. In Pursuit of a Rabbit

Alice Croft is ten today: a good age, Mama says, and one she should savor. The beaches still aren't safe, however much Alice would like to visit them, so instead they pack for lunch and go to the river instead. Although there are other children swimming, Mama is afraid of the water and Alice can do no more than walk along the bank, picking wildflowers and stealing longing glances at the water, which looks green and cool and wonderful in the sunlight.

She ventures closer to it, just low enough that the ground becomes squishy and damp underfoot. After she goes a little further, she finds a clump of water mint and tugs off a single leaf, which she crushes between her fingers.

"There's no need for that, you know," says a reproachful voice that sounds as if it belongs to a boy, perhaps a bit older than Alice is. She looks around curiously, but there's no sign of anyone else nearby. "They'll happily smell for you if you only ask nicely," the voice continues, and Alice realizes that it's coming from much lower than she thought originally. She looks down and gasps, delighted, when she sees a large, pure-white rabbit peeking at her between two stems.

"You can talk!" she says.

"So can you," the rabbit says reasonably, hopping out from the water mint so that she can see him better. He's wearing a checkered green waistcoat with shiny pearl buttons. Alice very much wants to pet him, since his fur looks so fluffy and soft, but she knows that _she _wouldn't like being petted by a complete stranger, so she resists.

"I've never seen a rabbit in a waistcoat before," Alice says.

The rabbit twitches his ears. "Well, there's no call to run about undressed just because everyone else is doing it," he says. He slips a paw-sized hand into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulls out a silver pocket-watch which, from what Alice can see, has six hands instead of the usual three. "Oh, dear, if I don't leave this instant I'll be late. Do forgive me—must run—"

He bounds off in a trice and Alice hesitates for only a second before running after him; he is by far the most interesting person she has ever met. The rabbit is faster than she, but he does not go far before diving into an enormous rabbit hole, more than big enough for her to crawl into herself. She goes not more than a meter or so before the ground gives way beneath her, and she falls down the dimly-lit hole for some time before catching up with the rabbit.

"Oh, dear," he says when he sees her.

"I _am_ sorry," Alice says. "It's just that I wondered where you were off too in such a hurry."

The rabbit sighs and withdraws a tiny bottle of greenish liquid from his other pocket, which he hands over. "Have a sip of that," he says, "or you'll be much too large when we land."

The liquid tastes a bit like toast and a bit like applesauce, and it has the very curious effect of making the rabbit grow larger and larger, until he's nearly as big as Mama. "That's a very good trick," she tells him as she hands the bottle back.

They continue to fall for a while, accompanied now by a strange collection of things; Alice plucks a prettily-carved hand-mirror from the air and admires the way the air rushing past has made her hair stand on end. "We're coming to the end of it now," the rabbit says presently, "do try to keep to the left fork—"

It's too late, however, and Alice can do nothing but wave as the hole splits in two and the rabbit is swallowed up by the left-hand tunnel. She clutches the mirror close to her chest while she falls into the much darker right fork. "I do hope," she says to the mirror, for the sound of her voice is comforting when she can't see to be certain she's still there, "that this tunnel doesn't stop anywhere dangerous."

As it happens, she lands very hard not much more than a minute afterwards. She picks herself up again and finds that she's on the banks of another river; this one is fast-moving and quite clear, so Alice can see the smooth rocks at the bottom. There are no plants along these banks, only yellowish rocks with peculiar patterns of something pale and crusty.

Alice peers around, hoping to get her bearings. This stretch of rocky ground and the river that flows through it don't last long; there is forest not too far off on either side. Upstream, she can see a crooked and very tall tower and, in the opposite direction, a vast expanse of blue which can only be the sea. Alice heads towards it, beaming, but gets no more than a few steps when she hears it: a piercing wail which rises and falls every few seconds.


	2. Along the Weeping River

Alice scarcely has time to stutter to a stop and wonder whether the rocks or the forest will provide better shelter when the siren fades away. The hair on the back of her neck prickles, and she wheels around, chewing her lip. There, on the rock which she left only seconds ago, sits a gigantic black cat. A patch of white fur gleams on his chest, and Alice imagines she can see the edges of it shifting as he turns huge orange eyes on her and starts to purr.

"Who are you?" Alice asks timidly.

The cat gets to his feet and pads closer; his head is higher than Alice's. "My name," he says, in a voice so deep it tickles her chest, "is Caught Shee." His tail lashes through the air, once, twice. "You may call me the Cheshire Cat, if you prefer." When he smiles, he reveals a mouthful of sharp teeth as bright as the splotch of white on his chest.

Is it her imagination, or is the sunlight weakening by the second?

"Well it was very nice to meet you," Alice says, backing away. Caught Shee smiles even wider, until his mouth cuts from one ear to the other. The wail picks up again, louder than before, and Alice sprints for the trees.

Before, the forest looked peaceful, but now that she's in the midst of it she realizes that the trees grow thick enough to blot out almost all light and the branches are low and brittle. They smack against her cheeks and her arms, which she throws up to protect her head as she runs. The high whine of engines overhead joins the scream of the siren; Alice stumbles over a protruding root, but manages to keep going, wheezing from the panicked sobs that leap out of her lungs in waves.

She sees a building through the trees and hurtles towards it, but there's a ferocious growl right behind her—no cat alive ever made a sound like that—and Caught Shee soars over her head and lands noiselessly to cut her off. Alice tries to swerve around him, but he reaches out with a single paw and bats her to the ground, then pins her their lazily. The siren and the engines cut off, leaving Alice's ears ringing. "Now, now," he says, "we were just beginning to get along. Tell me, Alice, how did you come to the Weeping River?"

One of Caught Shee's claws is pressing against her windpipe, so Alice coughs as she says, "How did you know my name?"

Caught Shee thumps his tail against the ground a time or two. "I know everybody's name," he says with a purr. His whiskers quiver, and the claw digs in a little harder. Alice squirms, blinking a fresh round of tears out of her eyes. "I don't like it when people don't answer my questions, Alice."

"I followed a rabbit," she squeaks. "You're hurting me!" The pressure on her throat eases, and she sucks in a big breath.

The cat's eyes narrow. "A white one?" Alice nods and, to her great surprise and relief, Caught Shee lifts his paw from her chest and walks a few paces away, where he sits and starts to clean behind his ears, his tail twitching. "So you're one of _those _Alices," he says, sounding bored.

"I don't know about that," Alice says meekly. "I only wanted to talk to him a bit more."

Caught Shee purrs, a loud rumble reminiscent of the engines that Alice is beginning to suspect existed only in her mind. "It was a fad, you see, for a time, to name children in Alice's honor," he continues. "Trite, don't you agree?" The tree branches grow claws and close in even more, the nearest of them even tangling in Alice's curls. She bats them away, whimpering. "But it would be such a shame to let a real one depart so quickly."

He finishes with his ears and stretches languidly, his claws extended and his teeth on display in a huge yawn. "I will give you a count of two," he says when he finishes. "Spend your time wisely."

Alice bolts for the house; Caught Shee calls after her, "_One_…"

The ground heaves and ruptures beneath her feet. A crack opens up right as she sets her foot down and she tumbles down, scraping her knees and the heels of her hands. Behind her, Caught Shee hisses, and she scrambles forward and up, focusing on the house with all her might. The door is so close—

"_Two!_"

Alice squeals in terror and leaps for the front stoop. She turns the knob, and the force of her momentum sends both her and the door crashing into the wall of the foyer; she bounces away and ends up sprawling on the hardwood floor. Although she kicks frantically, it's too late and Caught Shee is standing on the other side of the doorway. His eyes narrow, and for a moment she is paralyzed—she wonders if this is how mice feel.

Then he turns and, without a sound, vanishes.


	3. The Duchess's House

For a time, Alice stays on the floor, not daring to move in case Caught Shee returned. Eventually the shaking in her legs relented enough for her to clamber to her feet and shut the door. It makes a very reassuringly solid sound when it swings home.

It occurs to to Alice that there are oil lamps lining the walls and that, since they're alight, she has just intruded a stranger's home. "Hello?" she calls, peering further into the house in hopes of seeing some sign of its owner. There is not a hallway like she expects, but a large kitchen, quite empty but with every surface blackened with soot. "I didn't mean to intrude," Alice adds, a bit louder. "I only wanted to get away from the cat."

Another door next to the fireplace bursts open, and a grotesque little woman waddles through it, swinging a howling baby by the ankle. "Oh, don't," Alice cries, horrified, as the baby's head nearly clips the edge of the fireplace.

"He wouldn't eat his soup," the woman explains, tossing the baby into the sink, where he continues to scream at top volume. "Now, child, what do you want?"

"I only wanted to get away from Caught Shee," Alice explains again. "He chased me here."

The woman picks up a frying and throws it at her; it misses Alice by a hair and clatters against the doorframe. "Hit him 'round the head with it," she says. "His kind don't like iron, and the moral of that is, if you have the opportunity to hit someone, do it before you lose your chance."

"That seems like a very violent moral," Alice says.

"He's a very violent cat," the woman tells her severely. "He killed the cook, you know. And the moral of that is, no cooks spoil the soup just as readily as too many. Now, sit." She points to a rocking chair by the fire which is much too large for Alice to sit in comfortably, but she looks so ferocious that Alice obeys without comment. Her toes barely scrape the floor. "What is your name, child?"

"I'm Alice."

The woman nods. "Ah. I thought so. All of _our _children know better than to venture near the Weeping River." She sniffs. "It flows from the Pool of Tears, you know, and that's where the Cheshire Cat sleeps. And the moral of that is, crying does nobody any good."

"I wasn't crying," Alice protests. It's not quite _true_, but she wasn't crying that _much_.

"I am the Duchess of Clubs," the woman continues, ignoring her. The baby in the sink wails, and she wanders over to pick him up. She pinches his cheek and he screams even louder, but she keeps talking, raising her voice to be heard over the shrieks. "Now, what do you know of Wonderland?"

Alice frowns, thinking of nights spent huddled in Morrison shelters, surrounded by near-absolute darkness and sirens and a whisper from Mama reading by the light of a single candle. "I know the books," she says timidly. "I never suspected it might be a real place."

"And the moral of that is, you shouldn't believe everything you read," the Duchess says with a satisfied smile.

"But I just said I didn't until—"

"You ought to visit the Tea Party," the Duchess says, louder still. "Take the left path and you'll find the March Hare easily enough, and the Hatter is never far from her side. You may have my frying pan; I've no use for it, now the cook's dead." She thinks for a moment. "You can take him, too," she offers, holding up the baby.

Alice shrinks away. "I wouldn't know how to take care of him," she says, although it is true she'd probably do a better job than the Duchess.

"His incessant shrieking would attract the Cheshire Cat again," the Duchess agrees amiably and with that, she hustles Alice out of the rocking chair and back out the front door. Alice stands quivering on the stoop, clutching the frying pan in both hands. There's no sign of Caught Shee, though, so she ventures cautiously back into the forest, along the path that the Duchess had directed her to.

She follows it for what seems like a very long time, and presently she becomes aware of a grey mist creeping around her ankles. The further she goes along, the thicker and higher it grows, until she can't see more than an arms length ahead. She doesn't dare call out, in case Caught Shee is hiding somewhere nearby, but going back to the safety of the Duchess's house is impossible; she cannot tell which way is back and which way is forward anymore.

So Alice walks, and walks, and walks, managing by some miracle not to stumble. Then she takes one more step, and the mist ends so abruptly she flinches.


	4. Under the Cover of Steam

She is in a little clearing, surrounded by a dome of mist. There's a little cottage on the opposite end and between Alice and it is the longest table Alice has ever seen, large enough to accommodate thirty people to a side, and at the head of it there sits a very thin man in a padded wheelchair. There's a bowler hat perched at an angle on his pale-blond curls, and his equally pale eyes are fixed squarely on her.

"This is a private party," he says waspishly after a moment. "Didn't you see the sign, girl?"

"I didn't see any sign," Alice says in a very small voice. "The mist got in the way."

The man sniffs angrily. "Well, you may as well sit down now that you're here," he says. "Never mind us, by all means, make yourself at home."

Alice hurries over to the nearest chair, which creaks as she sits down in it. "I didn't mean to intrude," she says, setting the frying pan down next to the delicate china saucer in front of her. "I was only following directions. Are you the Hatter?"

"You ought to learn to think for yourself," he says, scowling at her. "Otherwise anyone might lead you around by the nose."

"Oh, do let her be," says another, female voice, and a woman with huge rabbit ears emerges from the cottage, bearing a tea tray which she sets in front of the Hatter. "She looks lost."

"She might be a spy," the Hatter points out as he pours himself a cup with trembling hands.

"I'm not a spy," Alice protests, "I'm a girl."

The Hatter brandishes his cup at her. "Ah, but if you _were_ a spy, you'd be certain to say that, so logically you must _be _a spy."

"My name's Alice," says Alice unhappily.

"And I'm the March Hare," the woman says before the Hatter can speak again. "And as you guessed, this is the Hatter." She knocks the rim of her own teacup against his skull, and he bats her away, scowling.

"She_ might_ be a spy," he insists.

"Yes, yes," the March Hare says, rolling her eyes. "The Queen's cards haven't found their way through the steam yet, you know." She pours a cup for Alice and slides it along the table, most of the tea slopping out along the way. Alice picks it up, expecting only dregs, but the cup is mostly full and, when she looks around for a sugar bowl, one appears at her elbow—or else it was there the whole time, and she only just noticed. "Besides, when have Alices ever worked for the Queen?"

"It could happen," the Hatter says, but Alice can see that he's only sulking now.

"Who's the Queen?" Alice asks.

"A tyrannical monster," says the Hatter, glowering. "It'll be off with _her _head if we've anything to do about it—"

"And another one will take her place," the March Hare adds mildly. "The Duchess of Clubs seems the most likely candidate."

"The one who sent me here?" Alices asks, thinking that this Queen must be _very_ dreadful if the Duchess is considered a better alternative.

"That's the one," the March Hare says. "We—" But she breaks off, her enormous ears twitching. The Hatter starts to speak, but she shushes him. "The Cat," she says, pointing. "That way. Come along, Alice."

She rolls the Hatter out from the table—his chair moves surprisingly well over the uneven ground. Alice snatches up the Duchess's frying pan and hurries after them as they head in the direction opposite where the March Hare pointed. Just before they enter the mist, the March Hare tosses one end of a piece of yarn at Alice. "Hold on to that and you won't get lost," she says. Alice wraps the string twice around her wrist.

It's an unpleasant walk; the mist seems even thicker than the last time, and Alice doesn't have the luxury of slowing down to find her way. The yarn tugs every few steps, and she stumbles forward each time. She can hear things creaking ominously just out of sight, the scrape of metal on metal, but when she asks what it is, the March Hare whispers, "Only the Cat. Keep quiet."

Alice cannot, however, contain her shriek when they emerge from the mist at last and Caught Shee is sitting mere inches away. He grins and opens his mouth, and Alice, panicking, swings with all her might. The frying pan connects with an ear-splitting _CLANG _that makes her fingers rattle, and Caught Shee screams—a horrible, too-human sound—recoiling with his paws pressed over his face; Alice can see the skin swelling, and then the yarn around her wrist yanks and she finds herself sprinting after the March Hare while the Hatter's chair skims over the ground in front of them.


	5. The Greenhouse Society

They run until Alice's legs ache and her side feels as though someone had driven a knife into it. Just when she thinks that she can go no further and the March Hare will simply have to drag her along by the piece of yarn, they reach a greenhouse, glass panes supported by delicate braids of iron, and the March Hare hustles them all inside.

There is no time to appreciate the explosion of colorful plants inside; the March Hare goes straight for a small lift that's little more than a moving, open platform concealed by an enormous pink mushroom, and as it starts to descend, she says, "The iron will keep the Cat out, but it's well known that he works with the Queen in exchange for the souls of her traitors and the card soldiers will go wherever they can see."

The lift sinks through darkness for so long that, were it not for the continuing sensation of movement, Alice would have thought that they were stuck in the shaft. Eventually they came to the end of it and even the warm light coming from the oil lamps in the room below makes Alice blink rapidly. When her eyes have adjusted, she sees that they're in a library with more books in it than she had imagined even existed; it seems to go on for miles.

Waiting in front of them is a lizard of about Alice's height, leaning on a rake. "Wasn't expecting to see you two here," he says, nodding at first the March Hare and then the Hatter.

"The Cat made it through the steam-screen," the Hatter says glumly.

"Ah," says the lizard. "Well, you're welcome here, of course. Who's she?" He peers at Alice with big brown eyes; Alice finds herself wishing that he would blink.

"This is Alice, Bill," the March Hare says.

"Really?" he says, leaning even closer to her before remembering himself and straightening up again. "One of _those _Alices?"

"It appears so," says the Hatter, putting a trembling hand on Alice's shoulder almost proprietarily. "She isn't a spy, at least, which means she must be a sign to act." He seems to swell momentarily with pride. "She hit the Cat in the face with that frying pan she's got, you know."

"Did you really?" Bill asks, looking delighted. "Horrible creature, I hope he's in _loads _of pain right now. Come along, further into the library." They all hurry after him; the March Hare drops the yarn at last to push the Hatter's chair with both hands, and Alice sticks as close to her side as possible. "This is the Greenhouse Society," Bill says, glancing back at Alice. "We're a resistance movement, seeking to overthrow the Queen of Hearts and replace her with someone less—bad."

Alice nods.

"Trouble is, we'd need to get into the Heart Palace to do that," Bill continues. "Which is—well, impossible. The nearest we've gotten is getting a commission for a couple of our men to go in and put in a _Rosa sericea _maze along the western edge of the Croquet Gardens, but three gardeners and a landscape designer with one and a half limbs to his name do not an adequate rebellion make." He sighs, looking downcast, and leads them past a small cluster of flamingos who, from what Alice can hear of their conversation, are arguing over the rules of croquet.

"Well," Alice says carefully, "I don't know very much at all about rebellions, but if you could make everyone very small then you could sneak in using the flowers, couldn't you?" She remembers that part of the book very well, since it was her favorite part, but she supposes it is possible that Lewis Carroll exaggerated some things. "Isn't there some sort of drink that does it?"

Bill, however, looks thoughtful as he ushers them into a small room packed with more books and several large, squashy armchairs. "I suppose we _could _procure some getting small elixir from the King," he says. "It's manufactured in Looking Glass Land, you see, and the Queen—well. Trading through the Looking Glass has been increasingly difficult of late."

"But if we _could_," the March Hare says.

"It would work," Bill says. "We grow grow mushrooms up there—" He gestures vaguely toward the ceiling. "If we smuggled pieces of that in in a second rosebush—hmm." He pats Alice's elbow, smiling. "An excellent idea on all counts," he says. "The Queen will never see it coming if we can pull it off."


	6. The Queen's Rosebushes

Bill leaves Alice with the Hatter and the March Hare in the room with the armchairs and goes to contact the King of Hearts. "When will he be back?" Alice asks, although neither the Hatter nor the March Hare seem particularly concerned; the Hatter produces a spool of ribbon from his pocket and winds it around his fingers with an absentminded air, and the March Hare examines the bookshelves.

"Oh, sooner or later," the March Hare says. "When the King of Hearts procures enough getting small elixir for the society to use. It shan't be more than a month, I should think."

"Oh," Alice says glumly, settling in an armchair and pulling her knees up to her chin. "It's only, my Mama will be wondering where I am."

There's not anything to be done about that, however, and Alice resigns herself to the routine of the Greenhouse Society; she is given a little room that's scarcely more than a closet with a tiny, uncomfortable bed, and she spends most of her time there, venturing out only for food. She takes her meals with the Hatter and the March Hare and a trio of mice, none of whom manage to say anything comforting except once, and Alice is fairly sure that that time was an accident.

In the end, it only takes two weeks for the King to send the very same White Rabbit that Alice followed here with a flask of the green liquid that he gave her while they were falling down the rabbit hole. He sees Alice on the outskirts of the crowd waiting for him and gives a timid wave, which she returns shyly.

She's invited to come along with the rest of the rebels; it was her idea, after all, so she takes another few sips of the elixir and watches while the rosebushes to be delivered to the Heart Palace balloon to the size of buildings. Bill picks her up with utmost care and holds her high enough to slip into a half-open bud. The smell is overpowering, even when she clamps her hands over her face and breathes as shallowly as possible. It gets worse when the gardeners pick up the pots for delivery, because the rose gets jostled and she slides back and forth, getting very bruised and sore in addition to the headache from the fumes. At last, the gardeners set the pots down again, and there is a brief respite before they start transferring her rosebush into the Queen's garden. She curls into a ball and waits for it to be over.

Finally, everything goes still again, and Alice listens hard for voices before peeking cautiously out of the bud. Her rose is overlooking the croquet grounds, and she can see a woman with a massive crown who must be the Queen striding about some way off with a flamingo tucked upside-down beneath her arm. The King, a scrawny man with a much smaller crown balanced lopsidedly on his head, is no more impressive than a shadow as he trails around in her wake, but as Alice watches, he breaks away from the Queen and wanders towards the rosebushes.

It takes him a moment to locate Alice, but when he sees her, his face breaks into a broad smile that makes him look much more like a real person. "The others are here as well?" he asks, for Alice is the only one who dared to peer out of the safety of her bud.

"Yes, your majesty," Alice says, wondering if she ought to try a curtsey.

The King beams even wider. "The grow mushrooms are waiting for you along the ledge that surrounds the croquet grounds," he says, indicating. Alice can just see a low, brick border separating the rose gardens from the smooth grass of the croquet field. "All of you make your way there. I have arranged for the majority of cards on duty at the moment to be those loyal to me; they will deal with their fellows who answer to my _dear _wife. You concern yourself with the Queen and the Duchess and Duke of Diamonds, who will assuredly fight for her."

This time it is not only Alice who answers with a demur, "Yes, your majesty," and the King smiles and makes a grand show of examining the rest of the new installation of roses. Alice struggles out of the bud and picks her way down the stem between the huge, reddish thorns. The fresh-turned earth at the base of the bush are even trickier to navigate, but by then, the others are beginning to congregate and a friendly-looking burrowing owl helps her over the worst of it.

The walk from the roses to the wall surrounding the croquet grounds is a much longer one than it appeared from the security of the rosebud; by the time they make it there, Alice's legs are aching. The head of the party, a plump, brightly colored dodo bird, gives them a count of five to eat the mushrooms that will make them grow.

The Queen lets out an outraged cry of "Off with their heads!" when she sees them, and some of the card guards make a start towards them. As the King promised, though, they're intercepted by more cards, and on the Dodo's shrill scream of "CHARGE!" they all race for the Queen. Alice is carried along by the tide of movement until she struggles to the outer edge of the pack.

The Duchess of Diamonds leaps at her, brandishing a large fan. Alice ducks and does the first thing that comes to mind, which is to kick the Duchess as hard as she can in the shin. The Duchess crumples, howling and clutching at her leg, and by the time Alice looks around, the Queen of Hearts has been detained, too.

"To the courtroom!" someone bellows, and there's a mad rush in the direction of the palace itself.


	7. Caterpillar Court

The King of Hearts gets to the courtroom first of all, with the Duchess of Clubs hurrying along behind him. There are, Alice sees, when the general chaos has calmed and the Queen has been chained secure in front of the jury box, a large number of playing cards spilling out of the Duchess's pockets, and she keeps shoving them back in. "Order in the court," bellows the King, and they all hasten to take their seats. The King himself flops into his throne. "Let's get this over with. Your Honor?"

Alice peers curiously in the direction which the King indicates with his scepter. From a pillar of bluish smoke, a deep voice says, "When the counsel is ready."

A strange sort of turtle with a donkey's tail stands up and remarks that the prosecution is in order; Alice watches the tears rolling down his big, grey face and decides that he must be the Mock Turtle; at any rate, he resembles the illustrations that she remembers.

"And the defense?" says the column of smoke.

The Dodo puffs up his chest feathers. "The same," he says.

"I object," the Mock Turtle says, and began to weep so piteously that Alice was quite impatient by the time that he was in a fit state to say just what he objected to. "The members of the jury are nothing but the Caucus Race," he continues at last, waving a flipper vaguely in the direction of the collection of birds and mice who make up the jury. "They'll be biased towards the Dodo for that reason."

"Nonsense!" the Dodo snaps. "They hate the Queen as much as anyone else!"

The Queen makes a noise of outrage, but no one pays her any mind. "I'll allow it," says the smoke, sounding bored. "Proceed, please." It lets out a gusty sigh, and the smoke clears away enough for Alice to see that the source of the voice is a large, scarlet caterpillar.

"Well," the Mock Turtle sobs, "we would like to charge her majesty with multiple counts of murder, bribery, and disturbing the peace."

"No arguments here," muttered one of the jurors, none too quietly. A quiet ripple of nervous giggles raced through the courtroom.

"Consider your verdict," the Caterpillar tells the jurors, but the Dodo clucks irritably and the King whispers, "Not yet!"

"The first witness for the defense," the Dodo says, scowling, "will be Caught Shee." Alice hunkers down in her seat as the cat prowls out of the shadows. He takes a seat next to the Queen, his whiskers twitching. Although Alice is sitting behind him, he swivels his head around to fix her with a bright orange stare, and then winks before turning back to face the Dodo.

"How long have you worked for the Queen?" asks the Dodo, with only the faintest tremor in his voice.

Caught Shee stretches luxuriously, his claws clicking on the flagstones. "I don't work for the Queen," he says slowly, "Never have, but I do dine at the palace often. The souls of the condemned are so… nutritious."

"But you have on occasion worked in tandem with the card soldiers to collect those condemned?" the Dodo says.

"I did," says Caught Shee.

"You're supposed to be the _defense_," the Queen hisses, her cheeks turning more and more purple.

"No further questions," the Dodo says.

"None from me," the Mock Turtle adds.

"Next witness," says the Caterpillar.

The Mock Turtle clears his throat and draws a flipper over his eyes. "We call Miss Alice to the stands," he says, and Alice, quite surprised, hurries down to the floor.

"I'm sure I don't know anything," she says nervously, as she draws level with the Queen.

"You know more than you think," Caught Shee murmurs. His voice rumbles overhead, louder than anything else in the courtroom except the clattering of his claws on stone as he stretches again. "Don't be so dreadfully dull or I shall start to dislike you, Alice."

"I don't know how not to be dull, if that's what you think I am," Alice says, feeling quite brave in the company of so many people, especially since they now seem to have grown since the last time she looked at them, while she and Caught Shee have stayed just the same. "It's only that I've never met the Queen before now, although," she takes a deep breath, and the Mock Turtle nods encouragingly, "although she seems a very unpleasant sort to me and I shouldn't like to live under her rule, I don't think."

"No further questions," says the Mock Turtle.

"Nor from me," the Dodo adds.

"Consider your verdict now," the Caterpillar says.

Alice, however, never gets to hear what the verdict will be, for the Mock Turtle begins to weep inconsolably and he's now so large that the tears dropping onto her head drive her to her knees. Caught Shee's laughter reverberates in her chest. "Oh, please stop," she says, but the sound only gets louder.

Some of the water gets into her eyes and she blinks hard to get rid of it. That doesn't work, so she leans over and rubs the water out on Caught Shee's fur. It's coarser than she suspects and, she realizes after a moment, green, and then she sits up and finds herself in the same patch of water mint in which she found the rabbit. "Oh!" she says, quite startled. She looks up at the thunderclouds which had gathered while she was away—or asleep, she supposed, and hurries to find her family.

It is only much later, after she has gotten ready for bed, that she finds a damp four of clubs tucked into her shoe. She tucks it into the inside cover of Mama's copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ before crawling into bed.


End file.
